World champion Viswanathan Anand’s winless streak continued as he played out a tame draw against out-of-form Sergey Karjakin of Russia — his fourth in as many games — in the fourth round of the fifth Final Masters chess here.
Anand could not force a win against Karjakin and inched himself up to four points under the soccer-like scoring system to occupy the fourth spot.
Italian Fabiano Caruana surged ahead of the field with a crushing victory over Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain.
With six rounds still remaining in the super tournament, Caruana took his tally to 10 points with his third victory out of four games. Aronian continued to follow the leader but the gap has increased to four points.
In the next round, Anand meets Carlsen and Caruana tackles Aronian while Karjakin takes on Vallejo Pons.
Negi joint second
Meanwhile, Parimarjan Negi finally managed a win beating Tomike Sanikidze of Georgia in the seventh round to grab the joint second spot at the International Chess Festival Baku Open in Azerbaijan.
He is now within half a point of the leader and defending champion Sergei Zhigalko. Behind Zhigalko (5.5 points), there are three players including Negi at five.
